[trhway]

>I expect Delta management to be concerned about this supplier damaging their employee performance and thus Delta's bottom line...

there is no "Delta management". Like in any other typical BigCo the VP(s) responsible for supplies like uniforms is different from those VPs who may have any relationship with the employee performance. The supply VP gets his bonus based on KPIs like cost saving, thus the cheapest/etc. uniform even if that uniform causes issues to the employees and significantly impacts their performance. Their performance isn't in the supply VP bonus KPIs. Imagine yourself in the shoes of that poor supply VP - you can provide better uniforms and lose the millions of the bonus, or you can have the bonus ... So far it has been my observation that a VP always chooses his bonus and defends it to the last man standing. Even if some other (exceptional as such things almost never happen) VP tries to push the supply VP, the supply VP provides that "toxicology report meeting highest standards" and that is it, deal with your disgruntled capricious employees yourself.

[tatersolid]

Nice rant but you miss a very important fact: there is no way Land’s End is “the cheapest uniform” Delta could have selected.

[trhway]

B2B is different from B2C. With that being said, just checked their B2C site - for example a commodity like women jeans is $25-35 on the low end. The Land's End manufacturing seems to be mostly China, India, Mexico. It is hard to be cheapest than that.

[tatersolid]

I’ve been involved in purchasing reasonably large quantities of uniforms (because why not also stick facilities and other random stuff under IT so we can exercise our “purchasing acumen”).

Land’s End is mid-range in cost and quality as far as uniforms go. Especially compared with the super-cheap drop-ship-from-Vietnam vendors.